I cannot remember, so it is Shrödinger's cat from the other direction, both alive and dead and uncertain, unless I can bring it to mind — or if not, to remain in that ghost half state forever. Or even worse, that we cannot ever know even what two states it hovers between; all there is is the uncertainty, the matter does not even enter into the picture. It must have been something at some point, isn’t it so? Yet it has slipped like a dream upon waking — and that, too, I wonder about. My mind teases me with inclinations to the memory, as if it knows it and is just keeping it from me for its own sadistic satisfaction. But no, we are not enemies, I decide, and there is some third portion, some databank that will not yield. Some door inside me which through the cracks around it hints of light, but I have lost the key, and wonder why it must have been so important to breach it.
I have had it that there were times when I managed to jog my memory loose with what seemed virtually irretrievable, and to tell you the truth, mosttimes it was not really worth the anxiety that the loss exuded. Then there were the rare instances where it was worth it, that the effort yielded its equal in what was retrieved. And now, it seems, since I have this penchant for forgetting, I have learned to get a feel for what it is just that I lost to the bit bucket of cognition: it is because I usually write things down, and if I am truly compelled to do just that, it is self-fulfilling in its saving; and if I merely think I will recall, but do not, I know that perhaps the quality was better than the average thought, but no so much that I forced myself immediately to scrawl it down. I guess that is what I have learned: always carry a little notebook with you. You never know.
